I'm thinking that it's probably to 'show off'.
Impressive skills chopper pilot, watch after he dumps the concrete.
- Thread starter Snattlerake
- Start Date
I'm thinking that it's probably to 'show off'.
KGCM Claremore Regional Airport, the Air Nat Guard comes out at night frequently for practice. I have been out at the airport and stepped out by my hangar to watch them frequently, very impressive. They will taxi the area about 3ft off the ground, hover, sometimes do it backing up, sometimes do it sideways. All in total darkness or only one red flashing light. I tipped my beer to them one night and they gave me a quick flash of their white lights. haha nice different kind of airshow.
Probably paid by the load instead of hourly.
Otto has skills.
OCPD had two of those little Hughes Helicopters. They loaned one to Tulsa to test for their PD and they crashed it. IIRC it was in the early eighties.
At that same time several pilots came back and flew crop dusters. The company owners loved them because at the end of a pass they would fly straight up until it stalled and then roll the plane left or right and be lined up for the returning pass. Pilots today make a huge sweeping circle at the end. John Hughes from Bartlesville told me that they saved him lots of money in fuel doing that.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
A friend of mine was working at a hospital in Houston back in the early '80s when they had a big refinery (IIRC) fire. They had birds stacked bringing patients to the hospital. He said you could tell the one ex-military pilot in the bunch. The rest of them would come in, flare out, and gingerly set down, but this guy would come screaming in, slam her on the deck, never slow his rotors, then pull pitch to go back and get more. He figured the guy must've been a dustoff pilot in 'Nam.
I don't know, but I'd guess it's to gain airspeed. On a recent episode of Free Range American, JT interviewed a former Chinook pilot, and they talked briefly about how flying helicopters at altitude in the mountains is different from flying at lower altitudes because of the thinner air (lower power from the engines, less lift, etc).
Yes. Showing off. Fun as hell.
When in a hover, you are basically in a torus of air - sort of like a doughnut, or a smoke ring. Diving out of it - the torus - or flying off puts the chopper in "clean" air which restores efficiency. It takes considerable less power to fly than it does to hover because once the torus gets to spinning (smoke-ringing) the chopper is not only holding itself up but holding itself up within the downdraft of the torus.
Woody
